Smart city innovation centre to come up at Chandigarh's PEC University soon

CHANDIGARH: The Smart City Innovation Centre (SCIC), which is going to come up at PEC University of Technology, will start work by April 31.

The three main aspects that this centre will take care of include creating a state-of-the-art innovation centre, setting up an urban observatory and making technology a part of the smart city in a manner that is people-friendly. The innovation centre will come up at the Society of Promotion of IT in Chandigarh (SPIC) building in PEC. This innovation centre will have a universal approach so that cities across the country can approach the centre and see what all technologies and areas the centre is working on.

As far as technology is concerned, SCIC will focus on to make technology people-friendly, said commissioner, Chandigarh administration, Baldeo Purushartha, IAS. He said that the centre will have to choose which particular technology to be used among various competing technologies, and it should be provided at a cheaper rate so that people can afford it.

Explaining about SCIC, Purushottam Kaushik, PEC faculty member and senior adviser McKinsey, said that main ingredients of SCIC include innovation centre for incubation of start-ups, smart city operations centre and industry engagement platform. He explained that SCIC is a partnership with industry, with government support and industry acumen to deliver smart solutions to the city making it technologically advanced and independent. Interestingly, he said that its organizing structure would be managed by students. PEC director Dr Manoj K Arora talked about rich history of the institution, proving its acumen to be a cohort in innovation of technology in the city. Anurag Aggarwal (home secretary) highlighted that Chandigarh is on its way of becoming not just a smart city, but a city with a difference, as it qualifies the criterion by just the way it was planned and stands the test of smartness even today.

Commissioner, Chandigarh administration, Baldeo Purushartha, spoke of the venture as an opportunity for students, current or former, to give back to their alma-mater in terms of capital, support and talent. His speech underlined significance of team work in bringing this project to fruition. Some suggestions put forth by him included watershed management and power distribution, smart power meters, energy efficient systems and low pollution systems, solid waste management and smart infrastructure were some other areas that were focused on. This all-encompassing approach ignited some sparks of inspiration in young minds present and shed light on importance of brainstorming and a holistic and out-of-the-box methodology. |
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